


Sticking plaster

by imsfire



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Clint has been beaten up (again), Clint is a bit accident prone, Clint is better with major injuries than minor ones, Friendship, Gen, Laura Barton is mentioned but not present, Lucky the dog is mentioned but not present
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-27
Updated: 2016-02-27
Packaged: 2018-05-23 13:24:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 957
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6117780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imsfire/pseuds/imsfire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clint Barton has a very busy life, and he's a tough, capable guy, but sometimes even a true stoic like him has to ask a friend for help...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sticking plaster

Natasha doesn’t usually expect to see her partner after work. She knows he has Lucky, not to mention a whole apartment building, to look after when he isn’t busy avenging, and a patient family hiding away in the back of beyond as well. She knows that these days she’s just one friend in the life of a very busy man. So when someone comes to her door late at night she isn’t going to assume it’s him. Just because she’d like it to be doesn’t make it any less unlikely.  
Yet tonight the doorbell rings, there’s a figure silhouetted against the bullet-proof glass, and when she flicks on the intercom screen, it’s Clint. He’s alone; filthy and hangdog and looking thoroughly sorry for himself. She powers down her Widow’s Bite and sticks her gun in the back of her waistband, and lets him in.  
He’s limping.  
She leads him through to the main room, makes him sit down and fetches him a beer and then, when he stares at it blankly, a mug of coffee as well. He still hasn’t spoken, but he swigs the coffee down in a few mouthfuls, and blinks, and begins to look around him. His expression is a tad more rational.  
“Clint,” she says gently. Because this must be serious, to bring him here out of the blue like this, lame and dirty and exhausted at well after midnight. “Clint, what happened?”  
Mumble, says Clint, looking down at the Bukhara rug. “Mumble mumble” he adds.  
He picks up the beer bottle again and starts trying to snap off the cap with his fingers.  
“Wait, let me get you a – Clint, stop that, you’ll hurt your draw hand!”  
“Huh?”  
“Stop it!” She passes him the bottle opener. “Use this, don’t be stupid. What happened?”  
“Mumble mumble not stupid.”  
“Yes, you are. Tell me what happened. How did you hurt your leg?”  
She’s guessing it isn’t the end of the world coming, given how awkward he’s being about it. But the answer takes her by surprise even so.  
“Fell down.”  
“You fell down?” Natasha repeats. Only that? “Okay. Okay, you fell down. Are you drunk?”  
“No… Wish I was.”  
“How did you fall?”  
“Uh, well, I guess I tripped…”  
“How?” Natasha says again after an appreciable pause.  
“Aww, Nat… uh, yeah. Sorry. Tripped over Lucky’s rawhide bone. On top of the stairs. Fell down the whole fucking flight.” He looks her in the face for the first time since he’s arrived. “Nat, I’m such a moron.”  
“Yeah,” Nat says. “This I already know.”  
“Sorry…”  
Clint flips the cap from the bottle and drinks off half the contents at one go. Having declared his moronic status he doesn’t seem to have much else to say. Natasha sighs and prompts him again.  
“What do you need me to do? You know, even I can’t interrogate a rawhide dog chew.”  
“Huh? Uh, yeah… It was Mrs Wilding. Sweet little old lady in the first floor apartment. She saw me fall on my face and came out and helped me up. Jeezus, Nat, I felt such a moron.”  
“Yeah, you already said. Don’t tell me, Mrs Wilding turns out to be spying for the government of Azerbaijan?”  
Finally she manages to get a small grin from him. “No, she’s just Mrs Wilding. She was real sweet, honestly. She patched me up like I was just a kid, bathed my hands and put stuff on my bruises and everything. You’d think Laura was paying her to keep an eye on me.”  
Maybe she ought to, Nat thinks; hell, maybe I ought to, looking at the state of you. “So then you went out and got beat up again?”  
“Oh. Well, yeah, that was a whole different thing, yeah… But look, Nat, it was Mrs Wilding who did it. I need you to help me. Please?”  
“Would you like another beer?” Natasha asks. “Cause you’re not making much sense on just one.”  
“Yeah…”  
Since he doesn’t say anything further for now she goes back into the kitchen and gets the rest of the six-pack out of the fridge. This could be a long night if Clint is going to be this incoherent. But when she comes back into the lounge he looks up at her and smiles sheepishly, and says  
“She gave me a sticking plaster.”  
“That’s nice,” Nat says. “I hope you said thank you.”  
“I’d cut my knee. Like a kid, like I said. She put sticking plaster on it. Only, you see, her eyesight isn’t that great. And she put it on crooked. It’s got the sticky bit right across the cut and getting it off is gonna hurt like hell, Nat.”  
“Ouch, mmm,” Nat nods, amused.  
“It’s gonna hurt and it’s gonna pull the scab off again,” he says miserably. “It’s gonna make it bleed again.”  
“Yeah, I guess so.” They’re finally getting to the heart of the story, she thinks. Poor Clint, having to struggle through telling her this. For a man who gets beaten up regularly just for doing his job, he certainly does hate any kind of minor pain. But you’d think after all the sticking plasters Clint has had over the years he’d be cool with them by now.  
He looks up. “Nat, will you pull it for me, please?”  
“Okay.”  
“Thanks.”  
“You know you can always count on me, yes?” Natasha says. “Even for the little stuff?”  
“Yeah.” A tiny hint of a grin.  
“Only please, don’t let Lucky leave his toys near the top of the stairs. Next time it could be your neck that gets broken. Now, drop your pants and let me do my evil worst with you.”  
He is laughing properly at last as he stands up.


End file.
